Makeovers coincide with provincial Tories promise of two-fours on every corner

The Beer Store — the Ontario chain that many assume is owned by the provincial government even though it’s owned by parent companies based in the U.S., Belgium and Japan — has rarely found itself losing a customer due to how the place looks.

After all, there’s rarely another store across the street or around the corner where you can buy what it’s selling.

But four locations in the Toronto area have gotten a makeover that includes a new logo. And the timing probably isn’t a coincidence.

The Beer Store on Danforth Ave. in Toronto.

Right now, the only prominent competition that The Beer Store has in the province are the LCBO stores that carry a full range of alcoholic beverages, a tactic which proved popular enough to lead Brewers Retail to adapt its drafty locations beyond a bleak depot which required beer buyers to fill out a form to have their order retrieved from the back.

The experience hasn’t changed much, either, as the ritual largely continues to involve making a request at the counter and picked up after they get rolled down a conveyor.

The Beer Store retains this look elsewhere, for now.

Memories of this legacy have factored in decades of unsuccessful lobbying to widen the distribution of beer, wine and spirits to stores that are otherwise stuck with selling milk, candy and cigarettes.

Concurrently, the chain controlled by the foreign-owned Labatt and Molson — who hold 49 per cent each along with 2 per cent for Sleeman Breweries, which is owned by Sapporo in Japan — has taken another step to spruce up its offering.

A new look for four locations in the Toronto area debuted this week following the completion of “Beer College” training designed to enhance the product knowledge of store staff.

The Beer Store on Bathurst St. in Toronto.

The Beer Store on Parliament St. in Toronto.

New features that include interactive digital touch displays are being piloted in these new-look stores — located at the downtown Toronto intersections of College and Bathurst, Parliament and Winchester and Danforth and Greenwood, along with Hopedale Mall in Oakville — with the prospect of expanding to all the other Beer Stores in the province.

(The Beer Boutique, a smaller spin-off that opened in Toronto’s Liberty Village two years ago, was touted as another new retail model.)

The prospect of an Ontario election in the near future whose result could bring new competition likely has something to do with it.